Committee

The V&A Museum of Childhood is part of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and a charity exempt from registration under the Charities Act of 1993. The V&A operates at arm’s length from the Government and is governed by a board of trustees. The V&A Museum of Childhood has a sub-committee which currently includes V&A Trustees and other co-opted members.

Sir John Sorrell
Chair of the V&A Museum of Childhood Committee
Member of the V&A Board of Trustees

John Sorrell set up his first business when he was 19 and during his career of more than 40 years he founded and ran, with his wife Frances, one of Europe’s biggest and most successful design businesses, Newell and Sorrell, chaired both of the UK’s public design bodies (the Design Council and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment), originated and developed the London Design Festival and, again with Frances, set up the Sorrell Foundation, which works with young people to inspire their creativity. John was appointed CBE in 1996 and was awarded the Royal Society of Arts Bicentenary Medal in 1998. He holds four Honorary Design Doctorates, an Honorary Design Fellowship, is an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy, was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2002 and of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2009. John was awarded a Knighthood in the 2008 New Year Honours List `for services to the Creative Industries’. His book, `Creative Island’ (2002), features inspired design from Great Britain. A new edition, `Creative Island II’, was published in October 2009.

João Baptista

João Baptista has 30 years of international experience in IT, telecommunications, media and engineering, and has worked in most of the EU, the US, Brazil, China, Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently President Nordics, Southern Europe & South America and a member of the Executive Committee at CGI Group, the global IT services company. He joined CGI in 2008 from Portugal Telecom, where he was Board Director, Chairman and CEO of its international operations. Previously, João was Vice-President at Booz Allen Hamilton and, before that, Global Leader for Technology, Information, Communications and Entertainment at Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., and Managing Director and Head of the Media and Telecommunications Practice at Oliver Wyman. João has an MBA from Stanford University, having previously graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, and Energy Management. João has written numerous articles and conference papers on the communications industry and co-authored the book Grow to be Great, focusing on growth strategies (Free Press).

Professor Laurence Brockliss

Laurence Brockliss is professor of Early Modern French History at the University of Oxford. He is the author of some 50 articles and books.

Nicholas has been Chairman of the British Fashion Council and Chairman of the Professional Publishers Association. He was founding Chairman of Fashion Rocks which raised more than £3 million for The Prince’s Trust charity and was on the Advisory Board for the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium. He has been a member of the Council of the Royal College of Art, a member of the Trading Board of The Prince’s Trust and a Director of PressBof, the parent organisation of the Press Complaints Commission. Nicholas is currently Chairman of HRH The Prince of Wales’ Campaign for Wool, an Ambassador for the Landmark Trust, and a Patron of the Elephant Family.

He was awarded the 1982 prize for the British Press Awards’ Young Journalist of the Year when he was a columnist at the Evening Standard, and the Mark Boxer Lifetime Achievement Award for magazine journalism in 2001. In 2013, he was awarded the Marcus Morris Lifetime Achievement Award for publishing by the Professional Publishers Association (PPA) and was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2009 Birthday Honours.

Councillor David Edgar

David Edgar is both a Councillor for London Borough of Tower Hamlets and Director of Operations for the Young Foundation. In the past, David has worked for Volunteering England as Director of Corporate Services and for Price Waterhouse in London and Nairobi.

Andrew Hochhauser QC
Member of the V&A Board of Trustees

Andrew Hochhauser QC is a barrister at Essex Court Chambers, a Harmsworth scholar and Bencher of Middle Temple, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Recorder. He specialises in commercial and employment litigation, with a substantial court and advisory practice. Some more recent high-profile work has included acting for the FSA in Financial Services Compensation Scheme Ltd v Abbey National; representing celebrity chef Gary Rhodes against his former agents; the Dresdner Kleinwort bonus claims and in the high-profile battle between inter-dealer brokers; Tullett Prebon v BGC. He is also honorary Counsel to Westminster Abbey, and has recently obtained an MA from the Courtauld Institute of Art, where he specialised in British Modernism. He is the chairman of Dance Umbrella which mounts an annual Festival of international contemporary dance in London every autumn.

Councillor Denise Jones

Elected as Councillor in 1994, Denise Jones served as Mayor of Tower Hamlets from 1999 to 2000. She is founder of Eastside Arts & Bookshop.

Edmund de Waal OBE

Edmund de Waal is an artist and writer. He studied English at the University of Cambridge and ceramics in both England and Japan. He is best known for his large scale installations of porcelain vessels, which have been exhibited throughout the UK and internationally. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, has been published in almost thirty languages and won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. De Waal was recently awarded the prestigious Windham-Campbell prize for non-fiction, given annually by Yale University. His latest book, The White Road was published in September by Chatto & Windus.

Since 2012 he has been a member of the Royal Mint Advisory Committee and in 2015 joined the Board of Trustees for the National Art & Design Saturday Club.

Dame Jacqueline Wilson

Jacqueline Wilson is one of the nation’s favourite children’s authors, perhaps most famous for the much-loved character Tracy Beaker, who first appeared in 1991 in The Story of Tracy Beaker, which won the 2002 Blue Peter People’s Choice Award. Since then she has gone on to win many awards, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award for The Illustrated Mum and the prestigious Nestle Smarties Book Prize for Double Act. In 2002 Jacqueline was awarded the OBE for services to literacy in schools and from 2005 to 2007 she was the Children’s Laureate. In 2008 she became Dame Jacqueline Wilson.

V&A Museum of ChildhoodBethnal Green

Exhibition - Century of the Child: Nordic Design for Children 1900 to Today

30 March – 2 September 2018. The 20th century’s most iconic and influential Nordic designs for children, from BRIO to LEGO, Marimekko and the Moomins have been brought together for the first time in this stunning new exhibition.